Hi Reggie, I have been reading your post “Flesh and Blood Shall Not Inherit the Kingdom”. I have a question pertaining to the following point you made: “This, of course, leaves the question of where will the glorified, resurrected redeemed be in relation to the saints of Israel and all that will be saved during [...]
This morning, I was thinking of Paul’s statement, “but I obtained mercy to be faithful …”. I was noticing the order, that mercy precedes and goes before faithfulness, as though the ability for true faithfulness is in the prior revelation of mercy. Searching for the verse that contained this particular phrase, I typed in the [...]
I believe it is important that we affirm that the Jews, despite their current disobedience, are “the chosen people”. The age ends by a great international conflict called, “the controversy of Zion” (Isa 34:8; Zech 12:2-3; see the paper on my website recently found and posted, called, “The Significance of Jerusalem in Prophecy“. God sees, [...]
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The eschatology of the covenant is implicit in many of the statements of Moses. For example, at the threshold of entering the land, Moses declares his pessimism concerning Israel’s ability to continue in the Land. “For I know that after my death ye will utterly corrupt yourselves, and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you; and evil will befall you in the latter days” (Deut 31:29). Moses puts his finger on the one thing needful, the ‘without which not’ of all covenant inheritance, namely, the necessity for a new heart. “Yet the Lord hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day. (Deut 29:4).
This would be remedied by the gift of the new heart promised in Deut 30:1-6. Apart from a new creation, the intractable condition of the natural heart virtually dooms the nation to the perpetual curse of judgment and exile. Therefore, Deut 30:6 anticipates the coming in of a New Covenant, which is God’s pre-determined purpose to create a new heart that will enable the Jews to inherit the Land forever. “And the Lord thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and he will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers. And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that you may live” (Deut 30:5-6). [...]
that ill-prepares the people of God for what is ahead for both Israel and the church. Preterism puts the tribulation in the past. Amillennialism conceives of a “little season” of Satan’s release at the end of this age, with little specificity, and certainly no definite relationship to Israel. Historicism, with its often failed ‘year day’ theory, spreads the tribulation out over history, with an intensive resurgence at the end, while Pre-tribulationism exempts the church from any presence or role in the tribulation, so that “Jacob’s trouble” is only “Jacob’s problem”, since the church is in heaven at the wedding feast while Israel suffers the Antichrist. Hence, ours is a comparatively rare perspective that sees both Israel and the church together in a literal tribulation of 3 ½ years of unequaled affliction, as the church is engaged in prophetic witness and intercessory travail for the final redemption of the covenant nation, amid a common experience of world wide flight and persecution.
When aware of a future great tribulation, the primary concern has been the purification of the church through persecution. This is true, and we believe the church will be greatly transformed, but the primary purpose of “the tribulation, the great one” is to accomplish the historic fulfillment of what the prophets call, the ‘everlasting covenant’ (Isa 59:21; Jer 32:40; Ro 11:27), which necessarily requires the full coming in of “all Israel”, whom Paul identifies as the “natural branches” of present enmity (Ro 11:21, 24, 28). In conjunction with Christ’s return, the restoration of Israel finishes the mystery of God (Rev 10:7) and begins the millennial reign of Christ. [...]
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I simply begin with people’s familiarity with the story of Bethlehem and show them the prophecy in Mic 5:2, pointing out the antiquity of the prophecy (8th century contemporary of Isaiah). I then point out the next verse (Mic 5:3), which shows the “giving up” of Israel, pointing out the causal connection between the “therefore” of verse 3 and the “giving up” of the nation to the smiting of the ruler in verse 1 – Mic 5:1 (obviously the ruler from Bethelehem of verse 2 – Mic 5:2). I make much of the fact that the “giving up” of Israel is never permanent, but only UNTIL the time of Zion’s travail, pointing out that this is OT language for the travail and subsequent birth of the nation which follows the unequaled travail of “Jacob’s trouble” (Isa 66:8; Jer 30:7; Dan 12:1). I then ask if they’ve ever heard of the “great tribulation” (many have through everything from the “Left Behind” series to the History Channel. I sometimes mention the view of many Rabbis who spoke of “the messianic woes” or “footsteps of the Messiah” in reference to this fearful time.
(After this simple foundation, the way is made for almost any point of importance. In other words, it is a convenient grid to build on, as it opens up many of the great questions and issues of the mystery of the faith in its full reach to the end of the age). [...]
[...] Until recently, the church has, for the larger part, retired in defeat from Jewish evangelism. Yet nothing else is more calculated to prepare and deepen the church in its own faith than its encounter with the formidable Jew, the beloved enemy “for your sakes”. The Jew forces the church to do its homework. The challenge of outreach and witness to the Jew is calculated to deepen the church’s appreciation for the mystery of the faith as nothing else. If the church resigns its calling to go to the Jew first, it surrenders a key component in God’s larger strategy in the evangelism of the nations. Hence, the church that is ineffectual towards Israel is ineffectual in a crucial aspect of its mission, which must be accomplished in order for Christ to return.
Israel is God’s self appointed mission impossible. History has an appointment to keep. The glory of God is demonstrated in His ability to finally bring the very same people that He first brought out of Egypt into the Land to stay (see Num 14:11-21; Dan 2:44. Compare the phrase “other people in Lev 20:24, 26 with Dan 2:44). The divine conquest of Jewish unbelief will be the like the parting of the Red Sea. The birthing of Israel ‘in one day’ (Isa 66:8; Zech 3:9) will be a monument to irresistible grace, comparable to Paul’s sovereign divine arrest on the Damascus road (Gal 1:15-16; w/ Ps 102:13; 110:3). Only this will be public in the sight of all nations. Indeed God has bound the destiny of all nations to the fall and rising again of Israel. If the church knew this, as it once did, it could never pray for the kingdom to come on earth without this consciousness. It would see Israel’s salvation as a special object of its corporate travail (in analogy to Paul’s travail for his Galatians; Gal 4:19 w/ Isa 66:8; Rev 12:2). [...]
[...] It is this “everlasting covenant of promise” that the prophets see as established permanently with the nation in the coming day of the Lord at the end of the last tribulation. And where Israel, as pertaining to the ‘natural branches’ is concerned, it will indeed yet be established WITH THEM at the ‘set time’ (Ps 102:13). But through the revelation of the mystery of the gospel, it is now seen that the power and spirit of that coming day has come already in unexpected advance of the “last day” (the day upon which all Jewish expectation was fixed). So while the ‘first’ covenant of the law is indeed obsolete, nothing of that former covenant can annul the sure confirmation of the oath that came 400 years earlier. It is that unconditional promise that the prophets have in mind when they speak of an ‘everlasting or new covenant’ to be established with the surviving remnant of the last tribulation, the ‘natural branches’. And though the church has gained advance access to the grace and glories of that everlasting / new covenant, the church of this age does not exhaust its fulfillment, since it is yet to be established with those with whom it was originally made. [...]
